UN Report: Relentless Russian Drone Strikes Turn Southern Ukrainian Communities into Ghost Towns

Constant Russian drone attacks on civilians are making Ukrainian-held areas along the lower Dnipro River increasingly uninhabitable, independent United Nations human rights investigators have reported.

“Local authorities reported a sharp decrease of the population as a consequence of the drone attacks; and that some areas have been almost entirely vacated,” the independent UN human rights experts said.

According to the report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, those who remain in the affected areas are mostly elderly and impoverished residents with nowhere else to go.

The commission described the Russian strikes across the Dnipro River — which forms a 300-kilometre front line in southern Ukraine — as “systematic” and intended to spread “terror” among civilians.

Targets included firefighters, ambulances, and repair crews, while homes were deliberately set ablaze and efforts to extinguish fires were obstructed, the report revealed.

It added that the destruction of electricity, gas, and water supplies has rendered many communities unlivable.

Civilians were frequently “chased” by Russian drones over “long distances” in the Kherson region, according to the commission, which detailed numerous attacks on ordinary Ukrainians that it said amounted to war crimes.

The report also condemned the forced deportation of Ukrainian citizens, mainly from Russian-occupied areas of the southern Zaporizhzhya region.

Several hundred people were initially taken to Ukrainian-controlled territories and later, in 2024 and 2025, transferred to Georgia, the investigators said.

More than 200 witnesses were interviewed for the report. The commission noted that Moscow denied its members access to Russian-controlled areas despite repeated requests.